


Waves Sweep Sand From My Island, From Me

by crimsonepitaph



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1566149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonepitaph/pseuds/crimsonepitaph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They know how much they've hurt each other. But neither knows how to bridge the chasm. One way it might end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waves Sweep Sand From My Island, From Me

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and mythology elements belong to their creators.  
>  **Beta:**  
>  The wonderful [](http://borgmama1of5.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://borgmama1of5.livejournal.com/)**borgmama1of5** \- if there's any coherency in this, it's all her doing. And summaries - those are all her, too. Also, she's amazing. But what else is new.
> 
> **Author's Note #1:** Title from the King Crimson song _Islands._  
>  **Author's Note #2:** Written for the following prompt at [](http://spn-bunker.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://spn-bunker.livejournal.com/)**spn_bunker** : _faith, fire, fling,_ for their awesome Bi-bro challenge.

**_[Faith]_ **

There’s nothing to believe in.

Sam stands upon a thin layer of glass. It cracks with each step, each thought – and below should be dark, a pit, a chasm, but it’s not, it’s light – diffused, quiet, iridescent and _right_.

It’s not heaven, it wouldn’t be, not for him.

It’s nothing. Just calm. Blank.

It’s what Sam needs. His life, a pit stop on a highway – _to hell,_ Sam’s mind supplies – is nothing more than a slow collapse, a helpless fall – days strung together by the same inescapable flaws. Sam missed all the road signs.

He thinks the Cage was always meant to be the end.

Sam didn’t think of it being the start.

He was done.

He should have been - back in Cold Oak, when _Sammy_ wasn’t just a broken illusion, when he wasn’t just Dean’s desperate wish.

Years – _centuries of hell –_ after, and every day Sam glues pieces of himself together by sheer power of will – but it’s just pain, excruciatingly dull, endless, because  the pieces no longer fit. Some singed, some with piercing jagged edges, some just shadows of a different him – but that’s not the worst thing.

Sam’s always been broken, always destined to fail Dean.

The world fell apart. Piece by piece, until there was nothing – _nobody_ – left to give.

But the very worst thing is, the world broke Dean.

Sam believed.

Never in himself. Just in Dean. If his brother could fly, then so could he.

If Dean could save Sam, then Sam could save the world for Dean.

Sam tries. Dean’s everything.

But Dean’s a much better man than him.

Sam sinks.

Lets go, finds that he doesn’t care, surrenders to his faults, because this was always him – tainted, unclean.

Yet he still believes.

Because there’s still Dean.

Until he can’t, until he’s not sure he’s not clinging to the same fractured reflection his brother lives in.

And Sam sees. Dean doesn’t trust him. He never did.

Dean doesn’t trust him to live.

Dean doesn’t scratch Sam’s surface, because there’s fire beneath – flesh, burnt, scars, wounds that neither of them knows how to live with.

Sam, breathing – it’s enough to bury Dean’s guilt.

And Sam doesn’t want it to be like this, he’s tired, even though he has no right to be.

The world broke Dean – but Sam was there, and he helped, betrayal by betrayal, sin by sin.

Things can be said to Sam. He _is_ an abomination, he _is_ a monster – he _is_ a freak.

He takes the words, files away, another coat of paint on a wall that wasn’t solid to begin with.

Sam doesn’t forget.

He smiles.

He smiles a crooked grin he doesn’t mean, because it’s him, and he deserves it, and Sam wallowing in his pain would be just another burden for Dean.

Sam’s angry – Dean’s taken the choice from him.

He’s hurt – it’s all too raw, too fresh, too much for him. But it’s okay. Dean’s taking all the blame, leaving Sam none to feel.

He leaves Sam empty. Worn out. Beat.

But Sam’s alive, he’s breathing, so it’s alright.

Sam chooses words that hurt, chinks in an armor Dean doesn’t have anymore.

Maybe Dean will get a clue, will let go, because Sam’s not worth it, not worth all the pain, the misery he put the world through.

Then again, Sam knows. Dean won’t, even if it kills him.

Dean will sink further, he’ll give it all that he has. He’ll fade away, all because Sam doesn’t know how to try, because it’s too much when he feels like nothing good can come of it.

He didn’t have a soul, but he felt every recoil of every trigger, every life draining before him; Sam didn’t kill Kevin, but he did, he remembers – his hand on Kevin’s face, empty holes that stared at him.

The scale tips, but never for him.

It’s silence, it’s another hunt, the low rumble of the Impala the only soundtrack.

Sam wants to shake his brother, tell him he loves him, wipe away that acceptance, the resignation when Dean’s about to get his throat slit. But it’s not that simple, and it will never be.

What they have – it’s fractured, it’s broken in ways Sam’s not sure they can fix. But this Dean with the Mark of Cain, a path he’d taken himself, his road paved with good intentions and slabs of self-loathing and grief – maybe this is what Sam needs, his redemption, an absolution he sought so long Sam thought it had ceased to exist.

To be the one to save Dean.

 “Dean—“

Sam speaks, and it feels like ages since he did. Dean’s there in the driver’s seat, but there are dark circles under his eyes, an alcohol reek that seems to follow him –Dean’s just going through the motions, because he thinks nobody’s there with him.

Sam is – _he will always be –_ but he wants to be angry, to be hurt, to just _feel_ without Dean taking it like it’s all about him.

“What, Sam?”

It’s weary, a sigh, because Dean’s already gearing up for another _No, I wouldn’t_ speech, already given up on Sam giving a fuck about him.

And it makes Sam want to shout, scream until his voice dries out, because it’s not what he means. What comes out is a stutter, not words, not sounds, because Sam, for all his smarts, has no idea how to go back in time to fix a lifetime of nobody asking Dean what _he_ needs.

It doesn’t matter – _it matters, more than anything else ever did –_ because Dean’s not expecting an answer, he’s not even looking at him.

_**[Fire]** _

Dean doesn’t need grey.

The world can ravage in all the colors that it wants, but at the end of the day, it will still be stormy hazel eyes that he sees.

Dean couldn't live.

_Alone_ and _without Sam_ are the same thing. They shouldn’t be. But they are. There is no other way for Dean.

But Sam could check out, could leave Dean.

Because it wasn’t drilled into him.

Sam’s big brother, but not Sam’s resolve to be.

Not like _Sammy_ is Dean’s.

Fireworks, a field, a brother that hasn’t given up on Dean. Sounds dissolved in gunfire, words with no meaning, memories, surreal and weak are all that’s grounding him.

Flames gnaw at him, until that’s all he is.

Darkness, justified by the good and evil of it, and Dean’s drowning in it, because every time he breathes he sinks, the borders of himself collapse, he edges towards the brink – and it’s all he can do to hold onto it, a weakness that makes him all the more human for it.

It’s on Dean.

The road to here, to now – stepping on corpses, on ash – because it’s all that’s left, funeral pyres, smell of burnt flesh – fire, burning everything that ever mattered to him.

And Sam, who drifts.

Who asks, but doesn’t want to know the answers.

Who cares, but not enough, and maybe Sam feels guilty for it, because it’s still Dean.

Dean drinks.

But he can still feel – can still hate himself enough to search for another ledge, another way to the end of it.

Dean doesn’t know when it shifted from the light at the end of the tunnel to undiluted dark. _So?_ Sam, a shadow, ready to die – again, not to live, just endless circles, because Sam doesn’t want to believe.

It’s easy to convince himself that Dean doesn’t want the same – _nobody gets hurt because of me –_ that he doesn’t dream of the same peace.

Maybe Dean should say he’s sorry.

But he’s not. He’d do it all over again, if it meant Sam alive.

But it’s not enough.

It’s love, and it’s also selfish and wrong, but he’ll make the same choices, because that’s Dean.

The Blade feels cool in his hand.

He’s burning inside.

It’s good, it’s blood, boiling, spilling over, and he feels free. It surges, he’s not a man, he’s a knight, it spreads, it doesn’t matter, just kill – and he wants to slit their throats, to bury the blade deep, to see heads rolling, eyes still wide, absent life.

He wants to rise on a mountain of skulls, of _bad_ – the power, the crunch of bones mincing under his feet – he revels in it, he’s done being a pawn, he’s done feeling weak. He can hear the steady pulse – everything  – and it makes the blood all the more tempting, crimson and thick.

He’s drowning in it.

It’s truth, untainted by feeling, by human weakness and flaw – maybe this is his freedom. The only way to make it good, when he has nothing, just himself, and the overwhelming urge, the weight of the blade in his hand and a world in black and white.

But there’s a voice, familiar, indistinct, and fear in hazel eyes, shifted to stormy green.

So Dean fights the pull, doesn’t give in.

The car, his only home, is left – but soon he won’t be needing it.

There’s a vague awareness, a consciousness that stretches along the white lines of the road – Sam’s uneasy shifts, then silence, nothing, back around, until it doesn’t matter, because Sam said it all, and Dean is done, done trying to figure out what Sam is telling him.

He grips the steering wheel tight – it’s all that’s holding him from splintering, from ripping in half – the part that’s already missing the ridges of the blade handle beneath his fingertips, the hunger – and the other, that’s still clinging to stillness and empty hopes, a hollow mantra that carries Sam’s voice, but it fades, gets lost in all the thoughts, in the thirst, in the slow drip of blood as measure of time.

Sam speaks _–“Dean–“_ and Dean doesn’t want to hear, but he answers “ _What, Sam?”_ because he deserves everything Sam says to him, there’s no forgiveness for Dean.

But Sam stays silent, and it’s a seal, a mark that burns hotter than the one on his hand, a confirmation – so Dean waits, knowing there’ll be a next time, still people – monsters – to kill.

_**[Fling]** _

The blade clatters, grazes the liquid floor, before it bubbles and sinks _–_ but it must be solid, because he’s standing, his feet are dug in, and it’s thick.

Here, at the end, alone.

No voice, no eyes. Just dark. Crimson.

Choices, scratched in walls with blunt fingertips.

Sam got his wish.

 

 


End file.
